Residents concerned over water outage

Phones were ringing all over Ruidoso Thursday when some residents of Ruidoso turned on their faucets and nothing came out.

"I think what's going on is somebody decided we've run out of water and they've panicked," Village Manager Debbie Lee said Thursday.

The village of Ruidoso Wednesday installed a temporary pump at Two Rivers Park for the Carrizo Canyon water transmission line project. The pump was installed to help supplement the water supply for the Grindstone service area.

Lee said Thursday that water was temporarily being diverted from the Alto system until the water being added into Grindstone could be aerated and treated properly to bring it up to quality standards.

"There's a lot of demands on the system and it's created a problem with very low water pressure," Lee said.

Lee said the village was getting calls from residents stating they were out of water as late as Thursday afternoon.

In a press release issued Thursday, Lee asked residents, business owners and visitors to be patient during this "temporary state of waterline transmission installation and to conserve water in every opportunity."

The release went on to say that village crews were monitoring the entire waste system, pumps and specifically the Grindstone system to ensure that water was restored.

Residents affected by the low pressure issues were in the Grindstone service area, including Carrizo Canyon Road east to Sudderth south.

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Ruidoso Mayor Ray Alborn said late Thursday morning that once crews started pumping water into the Grindstone Reservoir they discovered they did not have enough chemicals to treat the water.

"Last communication I had they said the chemicals were on the way," Alborn said.

"It takes a lot of chemicals to produce a water quality that people can drink," Lee said. "We're just asking people to be patient."

Alborn said that he had received a call from Sen. Tom Udall's office Thursday morning offering aid.

Initially 30 percent of the Grindstone service area was experiencing low pressure problems, but Lee said by Thursday afternoon that number was down to 17 percent, although there was some confusion about why 24 hours after the transition some residents continued to have problems.

"We thought it could be everybody pulling water off the Alto system at the same time and its not got enough capacity to produce enough water and pressure at the same time to meet the demand," she said.

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